The Beginning and End of Our First Boat

As boys we were always dreaming of owning our own boat. My two friends Terry, Melvin and I would spend hours drooling over the small the cabin cruisers and sailing boats that lay on the mud banks of the Rhymney River, which was a half a hours walk from our homes in Splott. During school holidays and sunny weekends, we would go to the river to swim. The river was very tidal with a high rise and fall. When the tide was in, the river was quite wide and flowed fairly fast. When the tide was out, the width of the river was greatly reduced, but still wide enough and deep enough for swimming, but there was an added attraction.

When the tide was out, it's steep banks were coated in a thick layer of mud, which made a great slide down into the water. We used to spend hours skylarking in the mud and hopefully washing off most of it before we got dressed to go back home, but the main attraction of the river were the boats.

One evening, Melvin came rushing around to my house, very excited. He had a newspaper, in his hand with a ring around an advertisement. He had found a boat that he thought we could buy. The advertisement described it as a 16 foot Shetland Skiff, with engine, sail and oars and the price was £18. Melvin was at that time employed as an apprentice electrician on the ships in Cardiff docks and he had savings of 11 pounds, which he was willing to contribute, if Terry and I could find the rest.

I was just newly married and living "in rooms" with my mother and father. My income from the furniture factory was totally absorbed by hire purchase on the small amount of furniture we had just bought, and our cost of living. I had no savings whatsoever. However, we went to see Terry, and he said he could provide 5 pounds of the balance, I was embarrassed about not being able to contribute so I decided to ask my father if he could help me with a loan of the other 2 pounds, I was delighted when he said he would, but he said it was much against his better judgement. Once that was established we rushed to the telephone box to ring the vendor. We were anxious not to let the opportunity slip through our fingers, so we rang the number every hour, that evening, until finally, at nine o'clock the vendor replied. We then learned to our dismay that the boat was berthed on the river at Briton Ferry. This was a complication as Briton Ferry was about 30 miles along the coast from Cardiff. We said we would ring him back as soon as we had discussed the possibilities amongst ourselves. By now we were so embroiled in the prospect of owning a boat, that this mere detail of distance was not going to stop us.

We decided, we would get up early next morning it being a Saturday, and we would take the train to Briton Ferry, as early as possible, to arrive by midday. This would then give us all afternoon and evening to motor or sail the boat back to Cardiff docks. We rang the vendor back and told him of our arrangements, and agreed to meet him at midday, where the boat was berthed. I had to borrow money for the train fare, but we decided to only buy one-way tickets, as we were going to sail back to Cardiff.

The next morning we set off in high spirits, it was a nice day, as we left Cardiff. By midday, we had actually found our way to the boat. We met the vendor and paid him, after inspecting the boat and its equipment. He took great care in describing how we should repair the sheer pin on the propeller, which would break, if the propeller hit anything solid. He gave us a spare copper pin, for such an emergency.

We noticed that quite a stiff wind was now blowing down the river and when the vendor learned that we were determined to set off immediately for Cardiff, he became very apprehensive and explained that the water outside the estuary would be very choppy, because of the wind. We were a mile up the river at that point and couldn't see the estuary, so he could not deter us from our mission. With some misgiving, he took his leave and left us to it. Five minutes later we had untied the boat started the engine and were putt-putting down the river. Felling like intrepid travellers the three of us were delighted with the boat and the adventure, we were about to embark on. 10 minutes later, we were into the estuary of the river. The wind was keener, and the water was roughing up as the river ploughed into the sea. The Skiff was light on the water and rode well on top of the waves, which were building up as we headed further out into the Bristol Channel. Because the boat was so light, it rose and fell on every crest and trough, as we headed straight into the oncoming breakers. Although it was a bit daunting, we were not overly concerned. The little engine was doing quite well. Soon it was time to turn to port as Cardiff docks were up the coast to the left.

This is when the troubled started. We were now side on to the waves and the boat was wallowing side to side and up and down. As the pitch of the boat increased the propeller was coming out of the water and slapping back down on each of the large waves. After 20 minutes of this following a particularly large wave, the propeller hit the water with a bang. The engine raced like mad, and we realised the copper pin had sheered. The outboard engine was attached to the stern of the Skiff, with the prop shaft outside the transom.

To repair the copper pin meant bringing the engine in board, but we had no tools for removing it from the transom. In desperation Terry tried to fix the new copper pin into the propeller shaft, as it was rising and falling in and out of the water, but there was no way he could succeed. Very soon he was soaking wet and shortly after, he became violently seasick. Watching Terry being sick, and with the extreme motion of the boat, both Melvin and I soon succumbed, and all three of us were leaning over the edge of the boat feeling very miserable. We had turned off the engine because it was no use for driving the boat, and as a consequence it was no longer helping us steer. We realised we had to do something, otherwise we would capsize and we were too far out to swim in that kind of sea. Next we tried to raise the sail, but we had no tools to fix the mast upright, so that didn't work. Our only option was to get the oars out and start rowing. We took it in turns to have a rest while two were rowing, we realised that there was no way we could get to Cardiff in the state we were in. The best we could do would be to beach the boat, if we could get near enough to the shoreline.

So we turned the boat and headed straight for the beach, which seemed to be about half a mile away. We were now running with the waves one-minute on the crest and the next minute in the trough, which made rowing quite difficult. One stroke would dig deep into the water while the next one would dig into fresh air and cause us to fall off the seats. However, as long as we managed to keep the bow pointed towards the shore, the running sea was taking us towards it at quite a rate. As we approached the shore, the breakers were in turmoil. Just before the beach, we realised there was a ridge of rocks about a hundred yards from the waterline. We had the oars over the stern, using them to try to steer the boat in a straight line. If we had turned side on to the water, we would have capsized. We raced towards the breakwater, and finally rode over the rough breakers into shallow water, where we quickly clambered out of the boat. We were waists deep in water, but the three of us dragged the boat up the beach to the waters edge. We all collapsed on the shingle beach from sheer exhaustion. When we had recovered some strength, we decided that all we could do was to get the boat above the high water mark on the beach. We could not do this ourselves, as the beach was steep and the shingle made it hard to pull the boat, so we went in search of a farmer with a tractor and asked him to tow it further up the beach for us. We decided we would leave it there until next weekend. We would come back then and try to continue on our way to Cardiff.

Fortunately, Melvin had enough money in his pocket to get us three single tickets for the train back to Cardiff. We arrived that evening, very late, very miserable and dishevelled. When I related our experiences to my father he said that he would take the three of us back to Briton Ferry next Saturday morning in his car.

When Saturday arrived we set off well prepared with plenty of tools and food and drink. We arrived at the beach, the boat was where we left it, but we discovered that it was half full of boulders and pebbles. It was obvious that the local children had been playing around and in it and had been filling it with the pebbles. We set about emptying the boat and then discovered to our horror that the bottom planking had been broken in a number of places. There was no way we could sail the boat again in its current state. The one remaining hope we had was that it had two flotation tanks under the seats, which were said to be able to keep it afloat, should it capsize or flood.

I then hit on the idea of dredging it off the shore into deep water. If we could do that we could float it round the headland into Porthcawl, where there was a small pontoon and dock. There it would be safe from children and there we could possibly work on it in the future.

The idea behind dredging was this, while the tide was well out we would attach the anchor by a long rope to the boat and set it in the sand way down the beach towards the sea. As the tide came in it would cover the anchor and eventually as the tide reach the boat and it would start to float because of the flotation tanks. Once the boat was floating we could get on board we would haul on the rope which would bring the boat to the anchor, we would then be in deeper water and we could lift the anchor and go from there. We would row until we got around the headland to our destination. That was the theory. First we had to get the boat below the waterline on the beach from where we had it towed the week before, otherwise the water would never reach it. By now, a number of people had arrived on the beach and were standing around watching us. We asked a number of them to help us drag the boat well down the beach. We laid out the line with the anchor on the end waiting for the tide to come up the beach. It took half an hour to cover the anchor, but it was another hour before it reached the boat. By now, there was quite a crowd gathered around us on the beach waiting to see what would happen. The tide rose and eventually the flotation tanks started to work, but the incoming waves now began to push the boat back up the beach, the anchor was dragging because it was not quite big enough to hold the boat as it was being forced back by the sea. The situation was about to be lost so I decided to make one last desperate attempt to get the boat to float.See now çeşme sakız feribot

We untied the rope and a number of us lined up like a tug of war team to break the anchor free and hauled it back to where we were standing. By now the crowd on the beach had increased and there must have been a few hundred people around us, watching our every move. I picked up the anchor and strained with all my might to get it above my head and then I started to walk into the sea. I kept walking until the water was lapping around my shoulders, and with one final heave I threw the anchor, as far ahead as I could into the deeper water. Until then, I was oblivious of everything other than getting the anchor into deep water. Once it left my hands I realised there was a lot of noise coming from the shore behind me. As I turned to walk back, I saw my father, Terry and Melvin gesticulating madly at me. I thought they had been cheering me on. A lot of the crowd were laughing which I thought strange, but it was only when I got back to the boat that I realised what was going on. They were all laughing because in my haste I had forgotten to tie the anchor to the boat and it was now no use to us at all. This was the most embarrassing moment of my life.